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HomeShop at BookSurgeBody, Mind & SpiritInspiration & Personal GrowthAmerica's Newton: The Reception of the Work of Randell Mills, in Historical and Contemporary Context |
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4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
A History as Grand as its Subject Jan 30, 2009
By D. Fafarman
"davefxx"
This review adapts the one I wrote for Stolper's 2006 "Genius Inventor". This being the first review of "America's Newton", I feel a sense of urgency about bringing it over. In a sense this is the "second edition" of GI, but the changes are too extensive for that. I see that Stolper has addressed my concerns from the earlier work, and there is a lot of new material throughout. I have only browsed this volume so far, so the comments are mostly about GI (minus my objections). GI is still OK but if you have a choice I recommend this version.
Tom Stolper, a long-time member of the Hydrino Study Group, has written a superb scholarly history of the development of Dr. Randell Mills' physical, chemical, and cosmological theories. The extent of the research Mr. Stolper has done is epic -- he worked extremely hard at putting this together. He presents what amounts to a full retrospective of 20th Century physics, and a summary of where it currently stands. His perspective is both technological and cultural (with perhaps a stronger claim to authority in the latter) -- for example, there's a section titled "Tribalism and Socialization". The book is full of fascinating anecdotes.
I personally have been following this saga for nearly two decades. I attended the historic 1999 American Chemical Society conference mentioned in the book. I also read the 3rd edition of Mills' magnum opus and followed some of the derivations (though not in depth).
Both Mills and Stolper suffered a lot of grief in connection with the cold fusion fiasco of 1989. Mills has good reason to continue to distance himself from cold fusion, for reasons that Stolper makes clear if you have not been immersed in the details of the controversy.
Here are a few brief passages to give you the flavor of the work; this first one is rather poignant:
"Lorentz was the dean of physicists in the early 20th century, much admired by Einstein, but raised in the classical tradition, and unhappy about the way that quantum theory contradicted so much of it ... just as unhappy about ... the model of the hydrogen atom as Mills was. Lorentz found himself saying on one day that an electron following a curved path radiated energy, and on the next day saying, in the same lecture hall, that the electron orbiting the hydrogen atom didn't. The many contradictions ... weighed heavily on him ... in 1924 he told Abraham Joffe, 'I have lost the conviction that my work has led to objective truth, and I don't know why I have lived. I only regret that I didn't die five years ago, when everything still appeared clear to me.'"
These quotes show Stolper's special grasp of group dynamics insight:
"Ignoring Mills and supporting Podkletnov was a classic example of how large outfits evaluate risks. They want incremental innovations that sustain existing programs, not major innovations that disrupt them. If Podkletnov-type antigravity work succeeded, then NASA would still be doing rocketry, and everything at NASA would go on much as before, though its work load would be a little lighter (pun intended). If Mills-type anti-gravity work succeeded, then NASA would enter upon its golden age, but at the price of organizational upheaval."
"Political reporters and foreign correspondents can go and check the assertions of top officials for themselves. Science writers can't do that with quantum theory or relativity theory or most other topics in science. They have to choose whom to believe, and nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, the established authorities in science provide the best guidance. The Mills affair was worse than unusual. It was unprecedented in living memory, and situations without precedent are always hard to deal with."
This one is rather droll :-):
"According to (Jonathan) Phillips, the bias against Mills' ideas was so
strong that the Journal of Physics D wouldn't even send the line-broadening manuscript out for review in 2003, because, an editor said, the journal feared that reviewers would recommend publication."
In Stolper's closing remarks:
"Science is a candle in the dark, just as Carl Sagan said. It must be guarded and tended, because its flame is not yet as bright or steady as most scientists think or as the leaders of science would have us believe. The winds of obscurantism are still strong, and the surrounding darkness is vast indeed. Mills has lit a new candle, one that may in time become a beacon. The efforts of those who would hide its light under a bushel or snuff it out entirely need to be countered."
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